Alt codes and special characters
Search a few hundred symbols by name, click one, and it is on your clipboard. Each card carries the Windows alt code, the Mac option combo, the HTML entity and the Unicode point, so you can copy the character or type it yourself.
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348 symbols.
Punctuation39
Em dash
U+2014
En dash
U+2013
Ellipsis
U+2026
Bullet
U+2022
Triangular bullet
U+2023
White bullet
U+25E6
Middle dot
U+00B7
Left double quote
U+201C
Right double quote
U+201D
Left single quote
U+2018
Right single quote
U+2019
Double low quote
U+201E
Single low quote
U+201A
Left guillemet
U+00AB
Right guillemet
U+00BB
Left single guillemet
U+2039
Right single guillemet
U+203A
Dagger
U+2020
Double dagger
U+2021
Section sign
U+00A7
Pilcrow
U+00B6
Inverted exclamation
U+00A1
Inverted question mark
U+00BF
Double exclamation
U+203C
Fraction slash
U+2044
Broken bar
U+00A6
Overline
U+203E
Small tilde
U+02DC
Circumflex accent
U+02C6
Diaeresis
U+00A8
Acute accent
U+00B4
Grave accent
U+0060
Macron
U+00AF
Cedilla
U+00B8
Ring above
U+02DA
Feminine ordinal
U+00AA
Masculine ordinal
U+00BA
Not sign
U+00AC
Reference mark
U+203B
Math & science62
Degree sign
U+00B0
Plus-minus sign
U+00B1
Multiplication sign
U+00D7
Division sign
U+00F7
Minus sign
U+2212
Not equal to
U+2260
Almost equal to
U+2248
Less than or equal
U+2264
Greater than or equal
U+2265
Identical to
U+2261
Square root
U+221A
Infinity
U+221E
N-ary summation
U+2211
Greek capital sigma
U+03A3
N-ary product
U+220F
Integral
U+222B
Contour integral
U+222E
Partial differential
U+2202
Increment
U+2206
Greek capital delta
U+0394
Nabla
U+2207
Micro sign
U+00B5
Greek small mu
U+03BC
Greek small pi
U+03C0
Greek capital omega
U+03A9
Greek small alpha
U+03B1
Greek small beta
U+03B2
Greek capital gamma
U+0393
Greek small gamma
U+03B3
Greek small delta
U+03B4
Greek small epsilon
U+03B5
Greek small theta
U+03B8
Greek capital theta
U+0398
Greek small lambda
U+03BB
Greek small sigma
U+03C3
Greek small tau
U+03C4
Greek small phi
U+03C6
Greek capital phi
U+03A6
Greek small omega
U+03C9
Intersection
U+2229
Union
U+222A
Element of
U+2208
Empty set
U+2205
Angle
U+2220
Right angle
U+221F
Proportional to
U+221D
Therefore
U+2234
Because
U+2235
Bullet operator
U+2219
Prime
U+2032
Double prime
U+2033
Superscript one
U+00B9
Superscript two
U+00B2
Superscript three
U+00B3
Superscript n
U+207F
Per mille
U+2030
Per ten thousand
U+2031
Diameter sign
U+2300
Integral top
U+2320
Integral bottom
U+2321
Script small l
U+2113
Aleph
U+2135
Currency25
Euro sign
U+20AC
Pound sign
U+00A3
Yen sign
U+00A5
Cent sign
U+00A2
Generic currency
U+00A4
Florin
U+0192
Indian rupee
U+20B9
Russian ruble
U+20BD
Korean won
U+20A9
Israeli shekel
U+20AA
Vietnamese dong
U+20AB
Ukrainian hryvnia
U+20B4
Turkish lira
U+20BA
Nigerian naira
U+20A6
Philippine peso
U+20B1
Costa Rican colon
U+20A1
Paraguayan guarani
U+20B2
Ghanaian cedi
U+20B5
Kazakhstani tenge
U+20B8
Mongolian tugrik
U+20AE
Azerbaijani manat
U+20BC
Georgian lari
U+20BE
Bitcoin sign
U+20BF
Peseta sign
U+20A7
Rupee sign
U+20A8
Arrows30
Leftwards arrow
U+2190
Rightwards arrow
U+2192
Upwards arrow
U+2191
Downwards arrow
U+2193
Left-right arrow
U+2194
Up-down arrow
U+2195
North-west arrow
U+2196
North-east arrow
U+2197
South-east arrow
U+2198
South-west arrow
U+2199
Leftwards double arrow
U+21D0
Rightwards double arrow
U+21D2
Upwards double arrow
U+21D1
Downwards double arrow
U+21D3
Left-right double arrow
U+21D4
Maps to
U+21A6
Leftwards arrow with hook
U+21A9
Rightwards arrow with hook
U+21AA
Anticlockwise open circle arrow
U+21BA
Clockwise open circle arrow
U+21BB
Arrow pointing up then right
U+2934
Arrow pointing down then right
U+2935
Long rightwards arrow
U+27F6
Heavy wide-headed arrow
U+2794
Black arrowhead
U+27A4
Black right-pointing pointer
U+25BA
Black left-pointing pointer
U+25C4
Black up-pointing triangle
U+25B2
Black down-pointing triangle
U+25BC
Up-down arrow with base
U+21A8
Legal & business11
Copyright sign
U+00A9
Registered sign
U+00AE
Trade mark sign
U+2122
Service mark
U+2120
Sound recording copyright
U+2117
Numero sign
U+2116
Prescription take
U+211E
Estimated sign
U+212E
Circled capital C
U+24B8
Circled capital R
U+24C7
Circled capital P
U+24C5
Accented letters70
a with acute
U+00E1
a with grave
U+00E0
a with circumflex
U+00E2
a with diaeresis
U+00E4
a with tilde
U+00E3
a with ring above
U+00E5
A with acute
U+00C1
A with grave
U+00C0
A with circumflex
U+00C2
A with diaeresis
U+00C4
A with tilde
U+00C3
A with ring above
U+00C5
e with acute
U+00E9
e with grave
U+00E8
e with circumflex
U+00EA
e with diaeresis
U+00EB
E with acute
U+00C9
E with grave
U+00C8
E with circumflex
U+00CA
E with diaeresis
U+00CB
i with acute
U+00ED
i with grave
U+00EC
i with circumflex
U+00EE
i with diaeresis
U+00EF
I with acute
U+00CD
I with grave
U+00CC
I with circumflex
U+00CE
I with diaeresis
U+00CF
o with acute
U+00F3
o with grave
U+00F2
o with circumflex
U+00F4
o with diaeresis
U+00F6
o with tilde
U+00F5
o with stroke
U+00F8
O with acute
U+00D3
O with grave
U+00D2
O with circumflex
U+00D4
O with diaeresis
U+00D6
O with tilde
U+00D5
O with stroke
U+00D8
u with acute
U+00FA
u with grave
U+00F9
u with circumflex
U+00FB
u with diaeresis
U+00FC
U with acute
U+00DA
U with grave
U+00D9
U with circumflex
U+00DB
U with diaeresis
U+00DC
n with tilde
U+00F1
N with tilde
U+00D1
c with cedilla
U+00E7
C with cedilla
U+00C7
y with acute
U+00FD
Y with acute
U+00DD
y with diaeresis
U+00FF
Y with diaeresis
U+0178
ae ligature
U+00E6
AE ligature
U+00C6
oe ligature
U+0153
OE ligature
U+0152
s with caron
U+0161
S with caron
U+0160
z with caron
U+017E
Z with caron
U+017D
Eth
U+00F0
Capital eth
U+00D0
Thorn
U+00FE
Capital thorn
U+00DE
Dotless i
U+0131
Fractions18
One half
U+00BD
One quarter
U+00BC
Three quarters
U+00BE
One third
U+2153
Two thirds
U+2154
One fifth
U+2155
Two fifths
U+2156
Three fifths
U+2157
Four fifths
U+2158
One sixth
U+2159
Five sixths
U+215A
One eighth
U+215B
Three eighths
U+215C
Five eighths
U+215D
Seven eighths
U+215E
One seventh
U+2150
One ninth
U+2151
One tenth
U+2152
Box drawing49
Light horizontal
U+2500
Light vertical
U+2502
Light down and right
U+250C
Light down and left
U+2510
Light up and right
U+2514
Light up and left
U+2518
Light vertical and right
U+251C
Light vertical and left
U+2524
Light down and horizontal
U+252C
Light up and horizontal
U+2534
Light vertical and horizontal
U+253C
Double horizontal
U+2550
Double vertical
U+2551
Double down and right
U+2554
Double down and left
U+2557
Double up and right
U+255A
Double up and left
U+255D
Double vertical and right
U+2560
Double vertical and left
U+2563
Double down and horizontal
U+2566
Double up and horizontal
U+2569
Double vertical and horizontal
U+256C
Down single and right double
U+2552
Down double and right single
U+2553
Down single and left double
U+2555
Down double and left single
U+2556
Up single and right double
U+2558
Up double and right single
U+2559
Up single and left double
U+255B
Up double and left single
U+255C
Vertical single and right double
U+255E
Vertical double and right single
U+255F
Vertical single and left double
U+2561
Vertical double and left single
U+2562
Down single and horizontal double
U+2564
Down double and horizontal single
U+2565
Up single and horizontal double
U+2567
Up double and horizontal single
U+2568
Vertical single and horizontal double
U+256A
Vertical double and horizontal single
U+256B
Light shade
U+2591
Medium shade
U+2592
Dark shade
U+2593
Full block
U+2588
Lower half block
U+2584
Upper half block
U+2580
Left half block
U+258C
Right half block
U+2590
Black square
U+25A0
Symbols & shapes44
Black heart suit
U+2665
Black diamond suit
U+2666
Black club suit
U+2663
Black spade suit
U+2660
White heart suit
U+2661
White smiling face
U+263A
Black smiling face
U+263B
White sun with rays
U+263C
Eighth note
U+266A
Beamed eighth notes
U+266B
Male sign
U+2642
Female sign
U+2640
White circle
U+25CB
Inverse bullet
U+25D8
Inverse white circle
U+25D9
Black circle
U+25CF
Black rectangle
U+25AC
Black small square
U+25AA
White small square
U+25AB
Black diamond
U+25C6
White diamond
U+25C7
Black star
U+2605
White star
U+2606
Check mark
U+2713
Heavy check mark
U+2714
Ballot X
U+2717
Heavy ballot X
U+2718
Ballot box
U+2610
Ballot box with check
U+2611
Ballot box with X
U+2612
Warning sign
U+26A0
Black telephone
U+260E
Envelope
U+2709
Scissors
U+2702
Heavy black heart
U+2764
Command key
U+2318
Option key
U+2325
Shift key
U+21E7
Control key
U+2303
Escape key
U+238B
Delete key
U+232B
Return key
U+23CE
Caps lock key
U+21EA
Eject key
U+23CF
Reading the codes
- Alt + 0176 — four digits starting with a zero. This is the ANSI form, and it is the one that behaves the same in Word, a browser and Notepad.
- Alt + 176 — no leading zero. This is the original DOS code page, a completely different table. Alt+0176 is the degree sign; Alt+176 is a shaded block.
- Both forms need the numeric keypad with Num Lock on. The number row along the top of the keyboard does not work.
Everything here runs on your device. Nothing you paste is uploaded.
What an alt code actually is
Nearly every page in this category is a table of numbers and nothing else — which is strange, because an alt code is the slowest way to get a character into a document, and the person reading the table is usually on a laptop with no numeric keypad, where the code will not work at all. So this page leads with a copy button and puts the codes second. The number is still there for anyone with a full keyboard who would rather type it than reach for the mouse.
The mechanism explains every failure mode. Holding Alt and typing digits on the numeric keypad tells Windows: assemble a character from this number, then release it into the focused field when Alt comes back up. The number is an index into a character table — and which table depends on how you typed the number, which is the part nobody mentions.
The leading zero changes the answer
Alt + 0176 and Alt + 176 are not the same instruction. The four-digit form beginning with a zero reads from the ANSI code page — Windows-1252 on any Western install — and gives you the degree sign. The three-digit form with no leading zero reads from CP437, the original IBM PC character set from 1981, and gives you a light shaded block. Same keyboard, same fingers, different table.
This is the single most common reason a code copied off some other site produces the wrong glyph. Somebody wrote the number down without the zero, or a text editor stripped it, and now you have ░ where you wanted °. Every code in the list above keeps its leading zero when it has one, and each card tells you which table the number belongs to when you hover it. If you only remember one thing from this page: type the zero.
Alt codes list, grouped so you can find things
The list above is filtered rather than paginated. Type a plain English word and it matches on names and aliases, so “degree” finds °, “tick” finds ✓, and “enye” finds ñ. You can also search the code itself — 0176, U+00B0 or just 00B0 — which is the fast way to check what a number you found elsewhere actually produces before you paste it into anything.
Nine categories cover what people reach for: typography, maths, currency, arrows, legal marks, accented Latin letters, fractions, box drawing, and general shapes. Every symbol also has its own anchor — the small link button on a card copies a URL like /tools/alt-codes#degree-sign, ready to drop into a style guide.
Alt codes for symbols that are not letters
Alt codes for symbols split into two groups, and the split is historical. The symbols that made it into Windows-1252 — em dash, bullet, curly quotes, copyright, trademark, euro, pound, section, pilcrow, dagger, per mille, micro — all have a stable four-digit code beginning with zero, and those have worked identically for thirty years.
The symbols that did not — card suits, arrows, box drawing characters, the smiling faces, the musical notes — survive only through CP437, which is why their codes are short and have no leading zero. Alt + 3 for ♥ is genuinely a 1981 artefact. Codes below 32 are the least reliable thing on this page: many applications treat those numbers as control keys instead of characters, so Alt + 9 may insert a tab rather than a circle. Where that happens, copy the character.
Everything else — most fractions, the rupee, the Bitcoin sign, check marks, star outlines, the Mac modifier glyphs — has no alt code in either table. They entered Unicode long after both code pages were frozen, so no number will ever produce them. The cards say so rather than inventing one.
The degree symbol alt code
It is the most searched entry in this whole category, so: the degree symbol alt code is Alt + 0176 on Windows, and Option + Shift + 8 on a Mac. In HTML write °. The Unicode point is U+00B0.Alt + 248 also produces it, via CP437, on a keyboard where that path works.
Two near-identical characters get confused with it constantly: the masculine ordinal º (Alt + 0186), which Spanish uses in 1º, and the ring above ˚, which is a combining accent. If a unit conversion in a spreadsheet silently fails on a pasted “degree sign”, that is usually why.
The special characters keyboard nobody has
The phrase “special characters keyboard” describes something that exists on a phone and not on a laptop: hold e on iOS or Android and a tray of é, è, ê, ë appears. Desktops never adopted that. Their substitutes are worse, each in a specific way.
- Windows emoji panel — press
Win + .(Windows key and full stop) in any text field. Despite the name, the panel has a symbols tab with punctuation, currency, maths and Latin letters, and it inserts at the cursor. This is the single best answer for a laptop user, and it is the one almost no alt-code page mentions. - Character Map — still shipped with Windows, still
charmapin the Run box. Slow, ugly and complete: every glyph in every installed font, with the alt code for the ones that have one. - The Alt+X trick in Word — type the hexadecimal code point, then press
Alt + X. Type00b0then Alt+X and it becomes°. It works with no keypad, no Num Lock and no code page ambiguity, because Unicode points are unambiguous. It only works in Word and a few other Microsoft applications, but where it works it is the best method on Windows. - Mac Character Viewer —
Control + Command + Spaceanywhere. Searchable, remembers what you used recently, inserts on double click.
How to type special characters on a Mac
macOS never had alt codes and never needed them, because the Option key is a whole second layer of the keyboard rather than a numeric escape hatch. Option + 8 is a bullet. Option + G is ©. Option + Shift + 8 is a degree sign. These are direct keystrokes, they work in every application, and there is no keypad and no Num Lock anywhere in the story.
Accents work through dead keys. Option + E types nothing visible; it arms an acute accent, and the next vowel you type receives it. So é is Option + E then E, and Á is Option + E then Shift + A. The same pattern gives you grave (Option + `), circumflex (Option + I), umlaut (Option + U) and tilde (Option + N). Every accented letter above lists its combo in that two-step form. Modern macOS also has the phone behaviour: hold a letter key and a small accent picker appears.
All the Mac combos here are for the US “ABC” layout. On a British, German or US International layout the letter combos mostly survive but the number-row ones move, the currency keys especially. Windows codes do not move that way, because they index a code page rather than a key — which is the honest reason Mac users searching for an alt code land on pages like this, and why both columns stay visible here whichever platform the page detects.
What this page deliberately does not do
It does not have an alt code for every character. Roughly a third of the symbols above show “no alt code”, and that is the truthful answer rather than a gap. No number types ✓ or ₹ on Windows, and pages that print one are usually passing off a Word-only Alt+X code without saying so.
It does not include emoji. They have a different solution (Win + ., or Control + Command + Space on a Mac), they render differently on every platform, and two thousand of them would bury the hundred characters people come here for.
It does not list invisible characters — the non-breaking space (Alt + 0160), the soft hyphen (Alt + 0173), the zero-width joiner. They have codes, but a card showing nothing is not useful, and pasting one usually causes the bug you were trying to fix. The useful direction there is removal, which the AI text cleaner handles.
And it does not pretend alt codes are a good workflow. They are a Windows convention, they require hardware most laptops stopped shipping a decade ago, the two code pages behind them disagree, and memorising four-digit numbers is a poor use of a human. Copy and paste is more reliable than every method described on this page. That is why the biggest control on each card is the character itself.
Going the other way: cleaning symbols out
Half the people on a symbols page want to insert one. The other half have a document full of curly quotes and em dashes that breaks a CSV import. The text cleaner converts smart quotes back to straight ones and normalises dashes in one pass, and the title case converter handles headings under AP, Chicago, MLA or APA rules.
Where VoiceSnap Pro fits
Typing symbols is one of the places dictation genuinely helps, because the hard part is never the idea — it is the mechanics of getting an unusual character out of a keyboard that has no key for it. VoiceSnap Pro is a voice-to-text dictation app for macOS and Windows. Hold one keyboard shortcut, speak, and clean punctuated text appears in whatever field your cursor is already in: the email, the ticket, the doc, the commit message. It adds punctuation and paragraph breaks as it transcribes and strips filler words, and every dictation is saved to a searchable notes library. It is a one-time $39 purchase, not a subscription.
It has not shipped yet — there is no download, only a list. Join the waitlist and you will get one email on release day. In the meantime this page stays free and needs no account, and the tool above will keep working exactly as it does now.
Questions people ask
No. The symbol list is part of the page itself and every copy happens through your browser’s clipboard, in your tab. There is no server call when you search, filter or copy. The “recently copied” row is stored in this browser’s local storage so your own most-used symbols stay near the top; it never leaves the device, and clearing your site data removes it.
Almost certainly because there is no numeric keypad. Alt codes read only from the keypad, never the number row, and Num Lock has to be on. Some laptops have an embedded keypad under an Fn layer; most do not. Use Win + ., the Alt+X trick in Word, or the copy button above.
The leading zero. Alt + 0176 gives the degree sign from the ANSI table; Alt + 176 gives a shaded block from the DOS table. If a code you found elsewhere produced something unexpected, search that number in the box above and you will see which character each form actually produces.
Alt codes are handled by Windows itself, so they usually work anywhere text is accepted, browsers included. Some applications intercept Alt for their own menus, and Linux uses a different mechanism (Ctrl + Shift + U then the hex code). Copying the character always works, everywhere.
For a modern UTF-8 page, paste the character: shorter, readable in the source, no decoding. Named entities like ° still earn their place for characters that would otherwise be markup, for templates that are not reliably UTF-8, and for email HTML. The second copy button on each card switches between the entity and the U+ code point.
Yes. Each card has a link button that copies its own address, and the anchors are forgiving — /tools/alt-codes#degree-sign and /tools/alt-codes#degree both land on the degree sign and highlight it. Handy for a team style guide that has to say “use this dash, not that one.”